Very related: How can I bring a lowly terrestrial invertebrate back to life 5 times per long rest with the least investment of levels?

A character wants to proactively use the Chronicle of the Raven Queen eldritch invocation (from UA: Warlock & Wizard) but must respect the Law of Death -- that creatures should be dead when it is "their time" and not otherwise. To satisfy this, the character must ensure that the creatures they "question" are dead for not very much longer than is strictly necessary for the invocation to work. Specifically, the character must end each day with no creature they killed (merely for questioning) still dead as a result of said killing.

Nevertheless, the character is committed to using the invocation proactively on creatures that they would not otherwise have killed, 5 times per long rest.


What is the least number of levels for such a character to be possible?


  1. Assume magic items are gained with levels at the normal rate, and that those items are whatever is most helpful to the build.
  2. If you need any mundane items, monies, or things purchasable with money, you should assume the character has an average amount of money from hoards for their level as well as close to the median amount of individual monster treasure
  3. Remember that the character has to have at least three levels in Warlock (the invocation requires the Pact of the Tome);

    the character can't e.g. be an 18th-level Rogue (not that that would necessarily solve the problem, just as an example).

  4. Multiclassing and UA are okay, as well as any other first-party sources.

  5. If income is important, you should assume the character gains a level every tenday (10 long rests), and gains the appropriate gold steadily over that time. You may instead assume a different amount of income if you can justify it as more normal or normal + special features that are part of your build.

  • \$\begingroup\$ How long does this need to go on? Is this done during adventuring, and if so what do we consider the income for the character? \$\endgroup\$ – David Coffron Nov 7 '19 at 16:56
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    \$\begingroup\$ @NautArch I don't think it's relevant... they have to be dead for the invocation to work, and they have to be alive afterwards. If it comes up you can assume whatever is more beneficial to you. \$\endgroup\$ – Please stop being evil Nov 7 '19 at 17:21
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    \$\begingroup\$ @DavidCoffron It needs to go on forever. The character has 'normal' income for an adventurer of their level, unless they have better than that for build reasons. \$\endgroup\$ – Please stop being evil Nov 7 '19 at 17:28
  • \$\begingroup\$ the UA link is dead, do you know where to find it? \$\endgroup\$ – Vylix Nov 22 '19 at 4:27

Warlock 5, Cleric 5


When considering options for consistently resurrecting creatures, Revify (3rd level spell) is clearly the way to go, since otherwise we'd need access to 5th level slots. This does pose a problem however, since Revify only works within a minute of death, and the Chronicle of the Raven Queen invocation also requires a minute to work. So we'll need to employ Gentle Repose (2nd level spell) as well to extend the amount of time we have to use Revify, along with enough slots to run each of these five times per Long Rest.

With that plan in action, we need to get the Warlock to level 5 to gain access to two 3rd level spell slots per Short Rest, and Cleric to level 5 as well to gain access to both the previously mentioned spells, as well as to feed the additional spell slots needed. Life Domain Cleric has the bonus of granting Revify at 5th level, though this isn't mandatory.

Our relevant spell slots are now:

  • Warlock: 2 x 3rd
  • Cleric: 3 x 2nd, 2 x 3rd

The last thing we need to consider for pulling this off is cost. Revify is the cheapest of the resurrection spells that can be done more than once per Long Rest, but it still requires 300 gp worth of diamonds per casting. Based on your source of average amount of money from hoards by level, one hoard altogether at level 10 would grant 20100 gp worth, which is enough for 67 castings per hoard. Adding the median amount of individual monster treasure at level 10 would increase that to 71 castings. More realistically this money would be split between a party, but as long as you're fairly active at hunting down hoards you could potentially keep the flow of money coming enough to sustain this lifestyle choice.


Following a long rest, we can initially kill, Gentle Repose, Chronicle, and Revify the creature a total of three times, with one 3rd level spell remaining from the Cleric. We then take a Short Rest to regain two more 3rd level Warlock slots, which we expend to Gentle Repose and Revify, completing a fourth cycle. A second Short Rest lets us do this once more for a total of five.

But there is another optimization we can make. If our Warlock were to come upon a Rod of the Pact Keeper, they would be allowed to regain a Warlock spell slot once per Long Rest. Using this before the first Short Rest would allow us to pair it with our leftover 3rd level Cleric slot to bring that up to four times. With this setup, only one Short Rest would be needed to complete the final cycle.


Five levels of Warlock and five levels of Cleric, combined with the Rod of the Pact Keeper, would allow us to use Gentle Repose and Revify to resurrect a creature five times per Long Rest, with a single Short Rest in between. Component cost: 300 gp per cycle, 1500 gp for all five.

After a single Long Rest with this setup, and Short Rests after each casting after (minus one hour's worth to account for the actual casting and Chronicle times), the character could pull off 27 resurrections per day.

Addendum: Divine Soul Sorcerer

As Jamie Katz points out in their answer, you can take advantage of the Divine Soul Sorcerer to gain the Cleric spells you need, while also exploiting the Sorcerer's spell point system to accomplish this as low as level 8, given sufficient Short Rests to convert the slots. This isn't to reiterate their excellent improvement, but rather to consider the benefits of applying the same trick here with a level 10 Warlock/Sorcerer instead.

Taking this route, you could convert your 5 sorcery points into a level 3 slot, and three level 1 spell slots into two level 2 slots, which gives you five level 2 and five level 3 slots total: enough to pull it off without a Short Rest or the Rod of the Pact Keeper, and with a level 1 slot left over.

Combined with proper spell point conversions on a Short Rest each hour, you could then pull off 34 of these resurrections per day on a single Long Rest.

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    \$\begingroup\$ +1, gentle repose is an excellent solution! Would you like to say anything about the 1500gp/day cost of casting these spells? \$\endgroup\$ – Dan B Nov 21 '19 at 21:13
  • \$\begingroup\$ @DanB Choose a noble background, ask dad for money... :P But you are right, forgot to mention the material costs. I'll add that in. \$\endgroup\$ – Mwr247 Nov 21 '19 at 21:26
  • \$\begingroup\$ You might consider adding Pearl of Power for another source of a 3rd level slot. \$\endgroup\$ – Pyrotechnical Nov 21 '19 at 22:21
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    \$\begingroup\$ Also, I appreciate that this gets around the whole free and willing issue of other resurrection spells. I'd probably opt to stop coming back after you stabbed me to death a second time. \$\endgroup\$ – Pyrotechnical Nov 21 '19 at 22:25
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Pyrotechnical That was an initial consideration, but the Pearl only refreshes once per day, so wouldn't qualify for the questioner needing to pull this off every Long Rest. Plus the Rod helped by getting it up to an even number of slots, whereas adding the Pearl in wouldn't really give us the two we need to pull it off another time before the Short Rest \$\endgroup\$ – Mwr247 Nov 21 '19 at 22:27

It can be done as early as level 5 by a Divine Soul Sorcerer

(+3 the three levels of Warlock you have listed)

The Warlock Levels give us the ability to use short rests to regain level 2 slots that can also be used to generate sorcery points, or to cast gentle repose to keep the bodies intact to cast revivify.

By converting sorcery points into level 3 slots and lower level slots into more sorcery points to fuel more level 3 slots it is easy enough to get 5 level 3 spell slots. With revivify available to the Divine Soul Sorcerer you can cast revivify 5x in a row with a little bit of pre-emptive spell slot/sorcery point conversion.

The Math

2x Revivify Baseline (third level spell slots at level 5)

Convert all 5 sorcery points into another 3rd level spell slot (+1)

Convert another two level 2 spell slots and one level 1 slot into 5 more sorcery points and then convert those into another third level slot (+1)

Convert your remaining three level 1 and one level 2 spell slots into yet another 5 sorcery points for another revivify (+1)

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Does this build account for the need to also cast Gentle Repose to use Revify in time? The Chronicle feature takes one minute, and Revify can only be used within a minute of death. Additionally, don't forget to account for the minimum of 3 levels of Warlock you need on top of the 5 for Sorcerer. Nonetheless, given sufficient short rests it does seems you could pull this off with 5 Sorcerer 3 Warlock, so good work on that :) \$\endgroup\$ – Mwr247 Nov 21 '19 at 22:16
  • \$\begingroup\$ The 3 levels of Warlock give us the slot power to cast Gentle Repose. \$\endgroup\$ – JKizzle Nov 21 '19 at 22:52
  • \$\begingroup\$ They do if given sufficient Short Rests to gain more spell slots, but the answer as is doesn't mention that, or include mention of the need for using Gentle Repose. Including those would make this answer more complete. \$\endgroup\$ – Mwr247 Nov 21 '19 at 23:23

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